Man jailed after £28,000 of drugs are found in car by routine Hartlepool Police check

The driver of the black VW Passat gave a false name to the officers before they found sealed packages of cannabis in a bag on the back seat.

After his October 6 arrest in Church Row, Hartlepool, he produced immigration papers in the Albanian name of Eljo Agalliu.

Agalliu, 31, was working as a drugs courier to pay off a £10,000 debt to a gang after he was smuggled into the UK, said prosecutor Emma Atkinson.

For the last three and a half months he has been a remand prisoner in Durham Jail, Teesside Crown Court was told.

On his arrival in the UK he was held in a detention camp before he was moved to a house in the North East where he expected to find work in the construction industry, said Martin Scarborough, mitigating.

But instead he was ordered to work as a drugs courier to pay off the debt.

Mr Scarborough said that Agalliu had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty at the earliest stage and wanted to return to his homeland as soon as possible.

The judge, Recorder Aisha Wadoodi, told Agalliu, who appeared over a prison videolink: “If my understanding is right, once the sentence is completed you will be in a position to go back to Albania.”

Agalliu, of no fixed address, was jailed for eight months and his driving licence was endorsed after he pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis with intent to supply and also to driving without insurance.

Read more: The latest Hartlepool criminals to be locked up by the courts